Sermon Tone Analysis
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IT'S NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST
(Acts 14:1-7)
August 14, 2022
Read Acts 14:1-7 - Typically, a new believer has an instant desire to share their newfound faith with others.
They want them to experience new life, and have their eternal destiny settled as well.
Why would one not want that?!
So it can be disillusioning when some reject this message.
We don't get it.
But it's no surprise to God.
II Cor 4:4: "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
They don't get it.
Peter Kreft says, "A God who did not abolish suffering - worse, a God who abolished sin precisely by suffering - is a scandal to the modern mind."
And so we should not be surprised.
But neither can we withdraw.
We must desire to share the gospel, even when it costs to do so.
John Stott writes, "Either we are unfaithful in order to be popular, or we are willing to be unpopular in our determination to be faithful.
I very much doubt if it is possible to be faithful and popular at the same time.
I fear we have to choose."
So, it's not a popularity contest.
And if our faith costs us some friends, some prestige, even some physical attacks, we must be willing to go there.
Ultimate victory is assured in Him.
We get a glimpse here of how this played out in Paul's life.
I. Reception
In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas have just been driven out of Pisidian Antioch - yet they did not allow that to steal their joy.
Acts 13:52: "And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."
It was a choice, and they allowed the HS to govern their outlook, not the crowd.
They just moved 80 miles east to Iconium where they stayed longer than anywhere else on this journey.
It brought them close to Paul's native area and Cilician churches.
Iconium was a thriving town surrounded by fertile plains and verdant forests.
The name derived from a Greek myth which claimed Prometheus and Athena recreated mankind after a devastating flood by making images of people from the mud and breathing life into them (distorted biblical truth).
The Greek for "image" is εικον, hence, Iconium, a prosperous city of great natural beauty.
P&B followed their normal pattern going to the synagogue first.
Two reasons.
As God's chosen people, the Jews were still to receive the gospel first.
AND they knew the OT, giving a common starting point for preaching Jesus.
We are told they "spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed" (1b).
This would indicate that some of the Iconian Gentiles had shown interest in, or even adopted, Judaism and so attended synagogue.
So what did P&B preach?
Paul tells in Acts 20:21.
He was "testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."
The 2 elements of saving faith.
Repentance of sins and faith in Jesus.
That message is the same, then, now and forever.
It never changes.
Paul would have shown how Jesus of Nazareth, fit hand-in-glove with the messianic prophecies of the OT.
A deliverer was promised and a deliverer came.
He fulfilled precisely the message of Isaiah 53:5-6: But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."
In his death, he had taken upon himself the sins of all who would believe.
And in His resurrection He fulfilled precisely the message of Psa 16:10: "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption."
His death was an atoning death; His resurrection was the proof of its acceptance by God.
That's the message, and "a great number of Jews and Greeks believed."
This is our message, too.
When we worship well, unbelievers will ask, "Why do those people sing with such enthusiasm?
Why do they listen so attentively?
Why do they speak to God with such devotion?
Why do they live moral lives and have an eternal focus?
Why don't I have such appetite for God or His Word or His ways?"
Let us share Christ starting right here, every way we can by word and deed knowing some will receive; some will believe.
II.
Rejection
But some reject.
Mt 7:14: "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
That is sobering.
A few believe; many reject.
So it was for Paul. 2 "But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers."
The unbelievers set out to undermine the message.
I often wonder why unbelievers are so often antagonistic.
Why?
Why not just say, "Okay, you believe; I don't and that's the end of it."
Why seek to undermine the message?
Why the urgency to sabotage it?
It's not hurting anything, so why get exercised over it?
The answer is hidden in the text.
See "unbelieving Jews"?
The word used (ἀπειθέω) literally means to disobey.
The gospel requires a decision.
If true, and you reject it, there are eternal consequences.
It's not like me saying, "This dress is taupe," and you saying, "No, this dress is gray."
No harm being wrong there.
But the gospel isn't like that.
This message has teeth.
If true, consequences attach.
Rejecters get that, so it is of critical importance to them that it not be true.
They must undermine it bc they choose to disobey it.
Do they reject bc it is intellectually indefensible?
No! They disobey because they want their way more than God's.
It's not mind-driven; it's will-driven.
They disobey because they don't want it to be true.
If true, it would require lives to change.
Jesus put His finger on the issue in Jn 3:19: "And this is the judgment: the light (gospel) has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil."
People hate the light, not bc it is wrong, but because they choose self over God.
Thomas Nagel is an atheist, disobedient to the gospel.
Bc the gospel is provably untrue?
Not at all.
Listen: "I want atheism to be true and am uneasy that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are believers.
It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief.
It's that I hope there is no God!
I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."
He hates accountability.
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